


all of this could be yours if the price is right

by busaikko



Category: Twitch City
Genre: Adoption, F/M, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 18:40:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newbie's pregnant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all of this could be yours if the price is right

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to beta skieswideopen
> 
> Contains discussion of abortion and homophobia/homophobic language

> on the couch in the living room all day long,  
>  music on the television playing our song.  
>  I'm in the mood,  
>  the mood for you.  
>  ...  
>  people say friends don't destroy one another, what do they know about friends?  
> Game Shows Touch Our Lives (The Mountain Goats)  
> 

**One.**

When Newbie tells Curtis he's pregnant, Curtis nearly looks interested. "Was it aliens?" he asks. "Did they implant eggs, or was it anal probing?"

"You did the anal probing, dickwad," Newbie tells him. Curtis frowns, then gropes for the remote and changes the channel to an infomercial with Suzanne Somers. "I mean. I haven't fucked anyone else."

"I don't know that," Curtis says, leaning back and stretching the hand holding the remote along the back of the sofa, away from Newbie. "Anyway, you're getting rid of it, right?" He shifts a little, side-eying Newbie's stomach like he's got ultrasound eyes. Newbie's wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, so mostly he looks like he's growing a beer gut. When he's standing his flannel shirt hides it pretty well, but sitting here next to Curtis, sinking into the crappy sofa, he's conscious of how visible the bump is now. "I maybe have ten dollars I can give you, but I was saving for new video tapes. I could ask Hope."

Newbie shoves to his feet, digging his hands into his pockets. "It's cool." He doesn't think Curtis would bother to lie to Hope if she asked him directly if he and Newbie were screwing around, but inertia and a comfortable status quo probably keeps Curtis from mentioning it on his own. Saying it would sound pretty crappy, Newbie thinks: _by the way, sometimes when you're out working in the evening, Newbie comes over and we drink beer and fuck. It doesn't mean anything._ Curtis is probably smart to say nothing; it's better. Safer.

Which is why Newbie thought telling Curtis about the baby was a terrible idea, except Newbie's doctor thinks it's important. She thinks he's irresponsible, because he hadn't even suspected he'd been knocked up until he still couldn't get his jeans to button up over the hard lump of his stomach after three weeks of protein shakes and jogging. He thought he had a tumor. His uncle had died of one, five months from diagnosis to the grave. Newbie had called his theoretical tumor Spanky, figuring no matter how bad things got, you couldn't be scared of something named Spanky.

He calls the kid Spanky sometimes. He doesn't tell Curtis that. Or that by the time the doctor gave him the results of his pee-in-a-cup test, Spanky was already in her fourth month, and that he's nearly sure she's going to be sticking around until birthday time.

"So I'll see you, then," he says, getting set to go.

"You coming over Friday?" Curtis asks, intent on the step-aerobics models. "Just, you used to come over."

Newbie shrugs, not that it matters when he's not in front of the screen. "I'm kind of busy," he says. "They're making me be day manager at the store. And my mother kicked me out. My new place's a couple of buses from here."

"If you are coming," Curtis goes on, dogged, "bring some chips or something. Maybe those little yogurt cups."

Newbie says, "Yeah, all right," even though he doesn't mean that he's agreeing to bring Curtis groceries. He just says that to shut him up.

But the weird thing is that he does swing by Friday after he gets off work. His back is killing him and his feet hurt, and he feels queasy. He yelled at some kids for reading the dirty magazines, and they poured a couple grape sodas all down aisle four when he wasn't looking. He can't get away from the nauseating smell of sweet artificial flavoring.

He gets in a lot more fights now, because he's always thought of guys who got knocked up as pussies, and he's _not_. Just because Spanky's taken up residence doesn't make him want to start knitting or eating organic, it makes him want to punch someone in the face. The weird thing is, though, that it's not until Curtis greets him by asking if he brought yogurt that Newbie realizes the person he wants to punch the most is Curtis.

He doesn't, but he does practically throw the box of groceries onto the couch next to Curtis and grab the remote while Curtis is distracted. He makes Curtis watch an American sitcom with a laugh track and everything, while Curtis sullenly eats through a box of cold strawberry poptarts. Newbie falls asleep during a commercial break, and when Curtis shakes him awake he's disoriented, not sure why Jimmy Stewart is staring at him from the screen.

Curtis kisses him, and Newbie's already kissing back before he remembers that he's angry with him, and by then Curtis is already pushing him down. Newbie licks the taste of fake fruit and sugar off his lips. At least it's not grape.

"You're an asshole," he tells Curtis, lifting his hips as Curtis tugs his sweatpants down.

"Maybe you should turn over," Curtis says. He digs the sticky AstroGlide tube out from under the sofa cushions. "Can you get your legs to bend up anymore?"

Newbie twists over, wishing he was drunk. Curtis isn't even a good fuck; Newbie's pretty sure Curtis isn't bisexual, or attracted to guys – or Newbie – at all. He just doesn't turn down any chance to have sex. Newbie's not that particular himself; it's not like people throw themselves at him. More like the opposite.

Curtis is already fucking him before Newbie remembers about protection, but he figures it's stupid to make a fuss about it now. He and Curtis have always had unsafe sex, anyway. Newbie never asks who else Curtis is sleeping with and whether they're diseased, and Curtis never considered the possibility that Newbie had a pseuterus instead of an appendix. Admittedly, Newbie had been pretty fucking surprised to discover that himself, when his doctor told him he had over a trimester's worth of kid growing in what he'd assumed was a totally different vestigial organ. Like some pussy.

He pushes his hips up, shifting until Curtis's dick feels good inside him, like he's being electrocuted from the inside out. He curls his fingers around the edge of the cushion and swears that this time, he's going to be totally silent. He doesn't want to give Curtis anything. He's the _taker_ here, making Curtis give him what he wants, using Curtis like a couch-potato shaped dildo, which honestly is what Curtis _is_.

Curtis leans forward, driving in deep and hard. Newbie's vision goes all sparkly, and the muscles in his arms shake from having to hold everything inside. He hasn't been able to get hard because of the hormones, but being fucked is even better than before. When he comes it's like he's having an out-of-body experience, floating up and away from the fruit flavors and the crumbs in the sofa and Curtis grunting as he pounds his own way to ecstasy.

Newbie's going to be sore as fuck tomorrow, he knows, but way up by the ceiling where his consciousness is now, he doesn't care. He likes being all blissed-out and floaty. It almost makes everything worth it.

* * *

**Two.**

When Spanky's eight months along and Newbie's huge, Curtis says to him one day during a commercial break, "We could get married."

Newbie coughs so hard on his coke that it goes up his nose. He wipes his face on his XXL t-shirt, and Hope says, "Curtis!" in a voice that over time's gone from being outraged to resigned.

"What?" Curtis says to her, like it's unfathomable why this would piss her off. He looks at Newbie, and then waves a hand at the TV, as if all the answers were there, plain and obvious. "What? The Rex Reilly Show's doing a special two-hour show on gay marriage. You're gay and knocked-up, the audience would love you."

"Curtis," Hope repeats, singsonging each syllable. She's got the whole disapproving-Grade-3 teacher thing going now, including the pursing of her mouth. "Maybe Newbie's not ready for marriage. Maybe he wants to marry the baby's father. Maybe –" she has to think a little to come up with something else – " he wants to marry for love, and not to get on national TV."

"Yeah, Squirtus," Newbie says, sneering, and gets up to go piss again. "Is romance fucking dead or what."

When Newbie comes out, wiping his hands off on his track pants, Hope is in the kitchen, standing at the window, looking like she snuck off for a cigarette. She turns when he walks in, and gives him a bright empty smile.

"Hey," she says. "I'm sorry."

Newbie leans against the wall, looking out the window, trying to see what she'd been staring at. "You shouldn't marry Curtis," he says, without thinking. "I mean, I don't know why you'd want to, but if he asks you..." He shrugs. "Don't marry someone you have to apologize for. It's bad for your digestion. You'd get fat."

"Did the guy dump you?" Hope asks, waving the back of her hand at Spanky, and then whipping it up to cover her mouth. "It's personal, I get it."

Newbie's plan has been mostly to say nothing, let people think what they think, and kick their asses if they tell him they're thinking stuff he doesn't like.

Hope mentally casting him as a plucky Julia Roberts character who got swept off her feet makes him uncomfortable, but he can't get all in her face about it. "It was a one night thing, okay," he says, and he can hear the anger curling around the words. "And I'm not keeping the baby."

Hope's mouth makes a perfect round O of surprise.

"Yeah," Newbie says, and drums his hands on the sides of his legs. He feels restless, like he wants to run, or throw the refrigerator out the window, or clean the whole fucking apartment from stained ceiling to grimy floors. Erase every sign of the lives that have passed through. He digs out his wallet and takes out the picture, unfolds it and hands it over. "That's Marco and Ed, they're going to be her dads, so Curtis can just go fuck himself."

Hope studies the picture, running her finger along the edge, her expression softening. "They look really happy," she says, and hands it back.

Newbie rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck, and puts it away. "They love each other," he suggests. He's tried to figure out why he chose them, and it always comes back to that. "And they've got a whole room full of toys and diapers and crap, just waiting for a kid to come along."

The weird thing about Marco and Ed is that they had _tried_ to knock each other up before going to the doctor and getting the bad news. Ed had even used to have a pseuterus, he said, but his parents got him a quote-unquote appendectomy when he was a kid. Because being gay's a fairly invisible sin, but walking around with another man's kid inside you is like being a big neon advertisement for sin. No one wanted that for their sons: if God had meant for men to give birth, people said, he'd have put that in the Bible. In the old days, Newbie and Spanky would have been burned alive, or hung, or something gross like that. But now, Spanky's going to come out and be just like any other baby. Except gayer, and with Curtis' genes.

"Can I," Hope starts, and then looks mortified. "Can I touch," and she waves at Newbie's stomach.

Newbie hates the way strangers feel like they have a right to touch him, like he's a fat Buddha to rub for luck, but he figures Hope's kind of entitled, seeing as he's been cheating with her boyfriend. "She's sleeping or something," he warns. "So... you probably won't feel anything."

"Okay," Hope says. "Sure."

Newbie takes her hand and presses it to the side of his belly button. He might look like he's got a couple throw pillows down his shirt, but the baby bump is hard.

Hope's surprised; he sees her expression change from trepidation to curiosity. "That's really weird," she says, smiling as she pushes a little and meets resistance. "Wow."

"Freakish," Newbie suggests. That's how he feels, most of the time.

"I am _never_ having kids," Hope says with finality, and steps away.

* * *

**Three.**

"Oh, hey," Curtis says when Newbie walks in.

Hope gives Newbie an apologetic look, shoving cereal boxes off the sofa invitingly. "Newbie had his baby, hon," she says, and kicks Curtis in the ankle.

Curtis looks over at Newbie and nods. "I thought you didn't seem so bloated anymore."

Hope smacks him. "Curtis!" She waves at the sofa. Newbie perches on the edge of the chair instead. He still feels like he took a beating, creeping about like an old man. No one told him that in all the pregnancy books and stuff, _discomfort_ meant _agonizing pain_. Plus he's got scars that are itchy and sore, and he's pretty sure Curtis's sofa's not hygienic.

"How you doing?" Newbie asks Hope, giving her a nod and a smile. She came to see him in the hospital and shot a roll of film of Newbie and Marco and Ed taking turns passing Spanky around. She's got a new, real name now, and two real dads, and Newbie's pretty glad the whole thing's over with. He hasn't looked at the pictures Hope gave him yet, but someday he will.

"Good," Hope says. She smiles in a way Newbie might've believed, if she wasn't twisting her hands together and glancing at Curtis. "I just... I got a promotion at work," she adds brightly.

"Her boss _likes_ her," Curtis says. He makes it sound filthy, like what he means to say is _likes her ass_ or _likes fucking her on the big steel boss-desk_.

"Yes," Hope says stiffly, and stands up, brushing her skirt off. "Yes, she does." Newbie half expects her to tell Curtis what an asshole he is, but she just walks over, gives Newbie a hug, and grabs up her bag as she walks out. Newbie can hear the thud of her boots on the stairs, but she doesn't even bother slamming the door. He figures she's reached the stage of acceptance; there's just no point in getting angry with Curtis. He should probably take Hope out for coffee or something, to say congratulations and tell her that she can crash at his place for a while, if she needs to get her head clear.

He watches what Curtis's watching for a bit, and then makes him change channels. When he was in the hospital, he watched the original Batman every day at four, and now he's kind of into it. Today's one of the Eartha Kitt Catwoman episodes. Newbie likes those.

When it's over, Curtis does a weird passive-aggressive thing about checking with Newbie if it's okay for him to watch what _he_ wants to watch, now, like somehow Newbie's disrupted his whole _schedule_. Newbie tells him to knock himself out, and Curtis puts on a talk show.

"I've been thinking," Newbie starts, and even though he came here to get this over with, he doesn't know how put what he's feeling into words. "It's like this show I watched got canceled? And every time I put the TV on I'm going to be looking for it, and that's just fucked."

"Yeah," Curtis says. "I remember... we saw the last Family Ties together, right? And Walter Cronkite, that was the end of an era."

"Exactly," Newbie says, relieved. "So I'm," he swallows, "I'm selling my sofa. And the TV. I'm going to start, I don't know, walking around. Look at nature or some shit. Because all of this, it has to mean something."

Curtis smiles, looking very sad and wise. "None of it means anything," he corrects gently. "But there's always a new season, bigger and badder."

Newbie shivers, despite his coat and his shirts and the scarf wrapped three times around his neck right up to his ears, and he has to press his arm tight against his scars and ride out a wave of sudden _discomfort_. "Yeah, well, maybe someday you'll get out there yourself." He digs his mittens out of his pockets and pulls them on. "Tell Hope I say bye, okay? And I'll see her around."

"Sure," Curtis says, and reaches for the remote control.

Newbie thinks about saying goodbye, but doesn't. He goes down the hall and down the stairs, out the door and onto the icy sidewalk. He figures feeling this empty must be a good thing. Something's bound to come along and fill him up.


End file.
